Yell sting snares directory pirate

YELL, the former Yellow Pages, has caught a rival by using a sting to trap rip-off merchants copying its valuable database.

The directories business, which BT sold at the height of its debt crisis and which has since floated on the stock market, has won a High Court injunction against Cambridge-based Datapride Communications. The injunction prevents Datapride from taking names and addresses from Yell's online classified directory, Yell.com, and then using them for its own telemarketing and other sales purposes.

Failure to comply could see the company's assets seized and even lead to jail sentences for the directors. Datapride has been forced to pay Yell's legal costs and will have to pay as yet undisclosed damages.

The company was caught in a trap used by directory firms to try to stem the growing problem of rogue telemarketers targeting the £4 billion market and potentially losing the industry millions of pounds a year in revenues.

Within its listings, Yell inserted 'seed' businesses - fictitious firms that can be used to prove that a company has stolen listings if and when it tries to contact the bogus firm for telemarketing purposes.

In the first two weeks of September, Datapride made 101 phone calls and sent eight faxes to the seeded businesses.

Industry experts claim that more than 1,500 firms in the UK are engaged in copying large sections of directories and then using the information for large telemarketing campaigns.

Jon Salmon, a Yell spokesman, said: 'We are pleased to have secured this injunction, which sends a clear warning that we won't hesitate to take strong action to protect and safeguard our intellectual property. We soon find out if someone is misusing our database.'

As the UK's leading online directory business, Yell.com has been particularly targeted. It says most perpetrators normally stop when they are threatened with legal action but a small core of offenders persist.

Yell, whose chief executive is John Condron, was floated last year in a deal valuing the firm at £2.6 billion.